Guild Wars 2

While I do agree that holiday content shouldn’t stick around 24/7, I don’t see any harm with it recurring every year, but with new stuff to do. For example, Halloween 2013 could have been a repeat of 2012, minus the Mad King bursting out through the fountain. The scavenger hunt? Tassi can send you to re-visit the ghosts, and the Ascent to Madness dungeon could also have been done via a “flashback”:

Player: “So, tell me the story of how we defeated Mad King Thorn in his own realm in years past.”
Tassi: “Now that’s quite a tale! After we forced the Mad King back into the Mad Realm, we sent adventurers through to beat him into submission…” [Replay the Ascent to Madness dungeon]

With the added Bloody Prince chapter, it would feel like Halloween got bigger and better every year, instead of now wondering which of our favourite activities won’t be coming back next year.

Alas, Chris Whiteside basically reaffirmed in that Collaborative Development thread that ANet is committed to the 2 week release schedule, so there’s little chance of them going back to a monthly/bimonthly release schedule, barring some major change in affairs. (He did soften his stance a few posts later, saying that if it REALLY falls flat, then of course ANet will re-evaluate things, but for now, they want to continue with the 2 week releases.)

I really think ANet has a lot of untapped potential with these NPCs. Give them some dialogue, some NPC banter, and maybe even give the PC small gifts and money once in a while.

A bit disappointed that ANet is still firmly committed to the idea of the two week release schedule, although Chris seemed to soften his stance on the next few pages (“well, if it REALLY doesn’t work out, we’re keeping our options open”). I am heartened to see that they have noticed that the amount of stuff to do with each Living Story is taking time away from players to do “regular content” though. My progress through the Personal Story and open world exploration has slowed to a crawl ever since the Living Story came out.

Also, double check that it isn’t a recipe you learn automatically as you gain ranks in Chef. Some dishes that are intermediate ingredients (like Bowl of Cherry Pie Filling) are learned automatically when you reach certain thresholds and don’t need to be discovered.

No, I doubt that’s it. I often get it from the Scarecrows, which only cause a single stack of Fright. Panic is only caused when you get multiple hits of Fright in a row, such as from the scream attack.

Besides, the bug does not stop me from taking actions once the Fear wears off. If I have a Hammer in hand, for example, I can still attack with it. I just can’t move or turn around. It definitely feels like a bug to me.

My reaction to Kasmeer’s remark on my Charr Warrior:

“Hey! Are you talking about me? You’re talking about me, aren’t you?!”

I bought the Consortium sickles a long time ago, so each time I see the Toxic patches, it’s “Woo, free 2.5+ silver!”

25 skill points is nothing compared to the veteran players who have been here since launch, OR who have been doing Champ runs daily and have stacks of Scrolls of Knowledge. For a new player, however, 25 skill points is a HUGE investment, and I don’t believe “go join the Champ train” is a suitable answer to their problem either, since not everybody likes farming.

That said, Antitoxin Spray IS a very niche skill, and we don’t know to what extent it’ll be required in any upcoming content. It may turn out to be unnecessary, or the party can get by as long as one person in the party has it. If this is the case, then yes, a 25 SP skill is fine since it’s permanently available and it’s not required.

There’s two ways to still get that Heart done fairly easily.

1. Wait till the event to protect the Quaggans from Krait attack pops up. Each krait you kill during the event progresses the bar.

2. Go hunt Krait in Auld Red Wharf. They count towards the bar too, although the Toxic Krait are a tougher breed than the normal Krait. Watch out for the Champion that spawns at times, however.

Kasmeer’s Staff will almost certainly be a gem store skin, similar to how Braham and Rox’s weapons were available on the gem store. Same goes for Marjory’s weapons.

lupercaleb.6041:

fear is too often making my character permanently stuck until a courtier converts me

Yeah, I get that bug sometimes too. It’s extremely annoying. >:(

Hiding really doesn’t work as a tactic for surviving the night. Experienced Courtiers will just use the teleporter radar to find you. In my experience, the best way to survive is to keep moving, grab items that immobilize courtiers (Torches and Spider Webs work best for this), and just keep running when Courtiers try to catch you. Dodge Scarecrows when the Courtiers try to use it on you, and when they use MKS, you need to do a bit of mental strategizing:

1. Not all the MKS are equally dangerous. The worst one to get on you is Dance, because that immobilizes you for the longest. Ponder and Cower are also bad. Shrug and Salute are relatively fast.

2. If the Courtier chasing you has already used their Scarecrow and you have a decent headstart, go ahead and perform the action, especially if you get Shrug or Salute. You’ll finish before they catch you, and the Swiftness you get for obeying will help you get away.

3. If the Courtier is too close, or if you get Dance, just ignore it and let it time out. The damage+Daze you get is ignorable if you have decently high health, and you can just run to a Food spawn, eat it and run out of range.

4. Of course, if you happen to be on low health, get Dance/Ponder/Cower and the Courtier is too close, then you’ve had it. Die and go kill some villagers.

Not all Home Instances are created equal, sadly.

Salma District is alright (the Obelisk looks like part of a garden arrangement), and the Dreamer’s Terrace even has the Obelisk underwater! But the Great Lodge has the Obelisk just… sitting out in the middle of the room. Not so much in a display style, but more of a “where anyone can just trip over it” style.

It’s affecting all activities, not just Keg Brawl. I don’t think there’s been any official reply from the devs, but considering they haven’t fixed it immediately (they tend to jump pretty quickly on such things), it’s probably intended.

As a player, I love your idea, but as a software developer, I know it’ll never happen. $180 million might sound like a lot, but you likely haven’t taken into account the deficit that ANet would have run up while developing GW2 in the first place. AAA video games cost a LOT of money to make; Assassin’s Creed cost $20 million to make. Skyrim cost $92 million. And recently GTA V broke all records by costing $265 million to make. In all honesty? That $180 million was probably enough to cover the costs of development and maybe give them a breathing room for another year. A year’s not a long time when it comes to business, and they’ll certainly need to make a lot more if they want to grow a war chest to fund future expansions or GW3.

But perhaps we can compromise. Instead of Tickets, perhaps completing a Monthly also gives a Black Lion Ticket scrap. That at least will supplement players who are buying chests, and once a year, players can treat themselves to a new weapon skin when it comes out. Perhaps the Birthday Presents can also give out one Black Lion Ticket.

(Prices taken from: http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Most_expensive_games)

Hmm, good point there about dungeons, Konig. I agree that they’d need to either nerf most elites in dungeons to Veterans (not something I’d complain about), or make it so that Elites only drop non-Exotic loot bags on occasion (which I don’t agree with, given Elite difficulty. If anything it’d just encourage people to skip Elites and tackle Champions).

Healing Signet + Adrenal Health + Regeneration + Mango Pies = Incredible Hulk unlocked. XD Bonus points if you can get an Ele buddy to accompany you for Soothing Mist.

Give it to Longbow!

I use Scepter/Pistol and Staff for my weapons. When faced with multiple enemies (anywhere from 3 – 5. More than that and I start pulling them separately), I aggro them all to ball them up, drop Chaos Storm on them, activate Mirror Images + Phase Retreat for 3 Clones, hit F2 shatter for 6 stacks of Confusion. Usually between the Confusion, Chaos Storm and Chaos Armor, mobs drop pretty quickly with some spamming of Winds of Chaos (traited with Illusionary Elasticity). If they still look in decent health, I swap to Scepter/Pistol, drop iDuelist, catch an attack with Illusionary Counter, then F1 shatter for more damage. That usually drops at least half of the group, and I can mop up the rest pretty easily.

Huh, I hadn’t noticed. >.> I’ll have to take a closer look at my Sylvari necro (who’s currently decked out in T1 Light) and see if anything’s changed.

She could easily have been of native Krytan descent. Back in GW1, Kryta seemed like a SE-Asian/Melanesian inspired zone.

For a moment I thought you were trying to make a human look like an Asura. I’m SO glad I was wrong.

Male here, and I have to say, I’m not sure where this view of GW2 having weak male characters comes from. The examples often quoted are Logan, Braham and Faren (I’ll leave out Trahearne since he’s disliked more for stealing the player’s limelight than being a bad male character).

Logan is a man in love. Love makes one do some silly things, and there’s actually scientific evidence that the hormones released during love alter your behaviour. Everything that Logan does is consistent with what a man in love does. When he’s NOT dealing with matters pertaining to the Queen, he’s steadfast, forthright and competent.

Braham is a young man, not much older than a teenager in many respects. He seems a bit stubborn and headstrong, but that’s not really different to how a lot of teenage males behave. He doesn’t have the kind of life experience and wisdom that the other people he interacts with (Rox mainly, but also Eir and Knut Whitebear) have, making him seem rash and/or simple in his actions.

Faren was no doubt partially written as comedic relief, I’ll readily admit, but he’s not a buffoon. He’s well aware of when things are serious; he’s just the personality type who tries to build up his confidence (and that of others) by joking around and pretending things aren’t as bad as they seem. If ANet wanted to make the Living Story really dark, they could take it down a path where they push Faren to breaking point and leave him in a sobbing, broken mess, a shell of his former self.

You need to be lucky with the invasions though. I did an invasion on the first night and got a grand total of 0 Spore Cleanings despite clearing about 15 or so events.

The Queensdale champ train and the Kessex farm run are at least reliable.

Few people bother to do the Scarlet invasions anymore, so I imagine it’s a combination of slowly drying up supply and needing 6 × 250 Sprockets for a full rune set that’s consuming the supply.

I haven’t seen a Black Lion Key drop in months either. I think you’ve just been incredibly lucky, Malediktus.

That’s a very good point, Konig. Despite knowing that Sylvari can physically enter the Mists, we’ve yet to see any Sylvari ghosts or spirits. At the very least, you’d have thought that someone like Riannoc would have produced a ghost given the traumatic circumstances he died under.

Thanks Konig.

Yep, called it. Still, never having to leave my home instance to charge Quartz again is a good QOL improvement in my books. Plus, 5 mains, 1 mule = 6 skill points.

… OK, I WANT that pet karka that gives me his old shells. That would just be so adorable.

For what it’s worth, I do enjoy your little “Nilkemia’s adventures” posts. I’m not sure if maybe it shouldn’t be on a blog as Golden suggested, but if the mods are happy with it, I’m more than happy to keep reading.

As to the Spore Cleanser achievement, you’ve seen my posts on the related thread, I believe. It’s annoying, but it can be done fairly quickly in the Queensdale Champ train, I hear.

More XP from harvesting that way?

I’d love it if they added it to sPvP! All WvW players, please harvest the Seedlings and help drive prices for the Spores down some more so I can buy them.

After further playing last night:

1. While farming Kessex for Offshoots, I joined an informal group that would announce when the 3 Krait Champs appeared, and then we would wait until the debuff appeared on them before killing them. It sometimes took a minute, sometimes two minutes, but the debuff ALWAYS spawned on them after some time.

I took a detour at one point to kill the Blood Witch, and she had the debuff too. It’s unknown how long she had been up by that point.

2. From the above, I suspect that all Champions/Veterans that spawn during events are eligible targets for the buff, no matter what map they spawn in. The only question is a matter of how long it takes for the debuff to appear on them. Since Scarlet invasion events tend to be cleared fairly rapidly due to the nature of the event, they actually make for poor targets for getting this achievement done.

The Queensdale Champ train likely works because the Champs are scattered across the map, and one usually spawns while the zerg is currently occupied at the previous Champ. As a result, by the time the zerg arrives at the next Champ, it’s had time to get the debuff.

So yeah, while I haven’t tried it myself yet, I’d say that the Queensdale train is the best way to get this achievement.

3. I still have yet to see any Elites with the debuff. I’m fairly certain that random wandering Vets like Oakhearts do NOT get the debuff, however.

Marjory’s not a Mary Sue. She got ganked by the Oratuss in 10 or so seconds in the instance. Then Kasmeer ran over and revived her. Aww!

But yeah, I agree with the others that considering Marjory’s a Necromancer, and their frequent use of Poison, having her be an expert with poisons isn’t all that unusual. What WOULD make her a Mary Sue is if she picked up a Spore Sample and went, “AHA! This is a Krait Fungaldeath. It’s exceedingly rare and only a handful of people in the world even know it exists! Fortunately, I just happened to have run across it in my past travels and know just the antidote…”

The problem here is that the Daily description is misleading. It sounds like it wants you to collect 20 Pristine Spore Samples, but what it ACTUALLY wants you to do is harvest from 20 Toxic Seedlings. The real task is quite easy to do, but collecting 20 Spores would take considerably more work.

My stance: Story instances should be soloable, but you can bring friends if you want.

I’d prefer it if ANet went back to the style they used for GW1. Each year’s festival offers the exact same content as last year, but with new additions put on to it. (Of course, for GW2, they’d need to tailor it somewhat so it doesn’t break immersion. Having Mad King destroy the fountain each year would just be silly.) So each year the things for players to do during a festival gets bigger and better. It also means less work for ANet because they don’t need to re-invent the same festival every year, allowing them to devote more resources to making new content.

While I’m also somewhat disappointed with the Halloween release, my main complaint isn’t the fact that there’s recycled content. It’s actually that Halloween 2013 feels shallower compared to 2012. IMO they should have returned most of the 2012 content (Reaper’s Rumble, scavenger hunt, Ascent to Madness, last year’s weapons), introduced the Bloody Prince, have the conflict between the Prince and King played up a little more (e.g. link the events in the Labyrinth to the Prince attempting to launch a foray against Thorn’s forces, or vice versa), and toned down the crazy grind needed for the new Halloween items.

The fact that Halloween also got sandwiched between Twilight Assault and Tower of Nightmares also takes away from the appeal of Halloween, I feel. It splits up the player base more, forcing them to go to wherever the current interest (read: zerg) is. As a result, the Labyrinth is now all but abandoned, despite the fact that there’s still two more weeks of Halloween to go.

All of the pumpkins hanging from the trees are valid targets; I’ve gotten pumpkin bundles from just about every single pumpkin there (and those that I haven’t is only because I kept missing with the boulders).

All of the armor skins ever released have always been permanent, so it’s a safe bet that these will be permanent too.

Which is good, because the Viper armor is the first armor set I actually would consider buying.

Which page was Bobby’s reply on?

There are some sex acts which disgust and horrify even the Sylvari?

Yeah, I’m pretty certain it’s “one skill point” and then after that it can be used to “Charge quartz once per day”.

Evilbeavers.3964:

Malediktus.9250:

They reduced bloodstone dust from champion bags too. Getting 2-5 now.

Thank Kitten. Now it’ll take longer before I have to delete a stack.

Yeah, agreed. Like a dedicated packrat I am still refusing to delete my 14 stacks of Bloodstone Dust, but at least it’ll take longer now to completely fill up my mule.

The update also finally introduced items we can craft with Bloodstone Dust, but I’m not wasting my Crystalline Dust on the new consumables. :P

Quartz does not drop from the Sanctum Sprint end-chest, no. I’ve done well over 60 runs there and I have never found any. They USED to drop from the activity back when Bazaar was still active, which is where the confusion probably arose.

No, I don’t particularly mind not having a grand entrance. MKT never had a grand entrance back in GW1 either.

What I DO miss is the chance to enter the Mad Realm and give Thorn some righteous pumpkin-kicking like we did last year.

I never said I agreed with their decision. I think the prices are too high myself, as I mentioned. I just think that the two reasons I stated (eliminating excess supply, and creating “prestige” by inflating prices and thus reducing the number of people able to get the item) are the reason why ANet did as they did.

Like you though, I personally don’t see any reason why we couldn’t have massive amounts of CC at rock bottom prices on the TP. I’m of the opinion that festival content should be fun and easily accessible to all. So what if everybody is running around with a Bloody Prince mini or rubber scimitars? Most of those people will get bored in the future and switch to something else. It’s better in my opinion to stand out in a game by using an abundance of choices to create a unique look, not by just buying whatever is the most expensive or tedious to grind.

Not sure where it is in the Grove, unfortunately. I haven’t looked. For human characters, it’s right next to the Quartz node.

Take note, however, that the Candy Corn node (as well as the Quartz node) is account wide. You can log onto any of your characters and go to their home instance and the nodes will be there. (You can only harvest from each node once per account per day though.)

No information so far, but my guess is that they’ll be gem store skins similar to Braham and Rox’s weapons.